


Gwynplaine

by MysticKid



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8201245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticKid/pseuds/MysticKid
Summary: Occurring in Season 6 just after episode 2 inspired by the recent spate of 'Creepy Clown' sightings across the United States, and very loosely based on the 1928 film based on Victor Hugo's "The Man Who Laughs.". https://archive.org/details/TheManWhoLaughs1928





	1. The Clown

“Stay away from my son!” A heavy set voice drew Snow, Charming and Henry's attention as they headed home from Granny’s. The sounds of someone being brutally beaten hastened them around the corner.

A huge man strikes an outrageously costumed clown against a wall, who crumples to the ground. Charming rushes in to intervene, noting as he approaches a tiny child desperately tugging at the aggressor’s free hand, “No Daddy, please! Don’t hurt him!”

Charming eases into the situation trying to calm the Man to no avail, who complains: “These newcomers. THEY’re different! They’re, they’re not like us! How can you bring clowns here!? I HATE CLOWNS.”

Charming warns, “Come on, Jim. The boy, your boy, you’re frightening him,” unsuccessfully trying to draw the man’s attention away. But the boy isn’t frightened, he is mesmerized. The bloodied but still outrageously grinning clown has produced a set of red juggling balls and has set them in motion. 

“Come on. Move on. Do you want me to have to arrest you?” Charming presses.

“I HATE …clowns,” the Man replies, finally convinced. He then retreats with Charming by his side obviously being lectured by his monarch, dragging his unwilling son behind him. 

As they leave the clown tosses the retreating child one of the balls, who catches it with utter delight. The clown, still grinning, awash in blood and tears, sobs… “goodbye, Goodbye, always goodbye.”

“You poor man,” Snow rushes to his side, but stops short as she takes in the full extent of his outrageousness. 

“HE’s gone …GONE!” The clown wails.

“I’m, I’m so sorry.” Snow produces a handkerchief but can only bring herself close enough to hand it to him. “Please, don’t cry.”

“Oh, my lady.” He applies the whole of her handkerchief to his face and blows with comical fury. Then attempts to return it to her …used. She declines. “I have but little magic but to make some laugh and some cry. I can only hope they laugh not too cruelly …or do not find their tears as bitter as mine.” He blows again, then theatrically dabs at his eyes. 

“How can you be crying, and still smile? “ Snow can’t help but giggle observing out loud. 

“Oh my lady, I was made this way. …I am but the dancing…” the clown groans clutching at himself in pain as he rises with difficulty from the ground, “…aching shadow of a thought denied. Really. Really only a child myself.” He slides close up against the returning Charming doing a comic twirl that brings him to a stop cuddled up against Snow. “Looking for playmates.” He produces a bouquet of feathery flowers with a flourish and grandly hands it to her. “They call me Gwynplaine, my lady.” He’s now so close to her face that she leans back away from him as if to keep him in focus. He pauses to study her, “I know you. Don’t I know you?” 

Charming grabs him at the shoulder and pulls him away, annoyed at the impertinence, “Stop this, Gwyn, Gwynplaine? Come, take off your mask, “ Charming can’t hide his revulsion as he finally looks at the man full in the face and realizes that the mask IS his face. The clown dangles from the hand of Charming’s disdain like a disjointed puppet whose strings have been cut, “But I AM the mask my lord. That is all that I am. There is no of me beneath.”

“You’re joking.” Snow adds harmlessly.

The clown’s head falls back and sideways toward her at an impossible angle. He stares with lifeless eyes at her with the same never-changing expression and answers with a hint of menace, “Always.” 

“We’re trying to help.” Henry interjects. “I mean, everyone from the Land of Untold Stories.”

“Would you really want to help me?” The clown suddenly straightens, but the sinister something behind his perpetual grin and sad eyes is gone in an instant when he looks closer at Henry, “I know you. …Would you like to play?” The handkerchief turns into a dove and flies out and up from the clown’s hand. Addressing Henry again: “…No, no you have grown too old poor lad. Poor lad, You did so look like who I wanted to find. But no.” 

“But I am the Author. I…” Henry

“ If I go untold, dear lad, I go on forever. Too happy. Too sad. Both at the same time. You would not wish that on me would you?” Another thought darkens behind the clown’s unchanging grin, “…And if I do not go on forever…”

“…I, I can help you finish your story.”

“Oh, deary dear me, if you do THAT I cease to exist!” 

Snow lights with an idea, “Who were you looking for?” 

“My son, mylady. My dearest lost boy. …My son Bae.”


	2. Regina Confronts Gold

The door slams hard at Gold’s shop and Regina enters. “That bell hasn’t broken yet.” Gold observes with the slightest shake of his head.

Regina seethes: “SO, you knew! You did it yourself, TO yourself. Before I did!”

“I take it you’ve discovered another new arrival?”

“IT has a name. Gwynplaine! Why? Why didn’t you warn me!?”

“Yes, before Storybrooke was created. You never did listen to the voice of experience, deary.”

“But Why, WHY!?”

“I had to banish the imp for my plan to work when we came here. At any rate, who would want to play the fool forever? Magic always has a price I always say.” A cloud passes over Gold’s thoughts, “The experiment did have unintended consequences.”

"Unintended consequences? Look what you've lost! "

"And what did you lose? Your self-confidence? Your joie de vivre. Your Evil side is a force to be reckoned with!"

“Wait, you’ve met her? You know she’s here?”

“The Evil Queen did pay me a short visit.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to tell anyone? …Or warn us you’d given the whole town away to Hyde! That’s what YOU lost MISTER GOLD and along with it the husband and father you might have been. The kind that plays the fool out of love for those who love you. “

“Belle, you’ve seen her?”

“Yes, and she doesn’t want to see you.”

Regina storms out. Gold calls after her,  
“Don't break…,  
Regina slams the door and its bell finally breaks free and hits the floor with a clatter  
“…my bell.”


	3. Gwynplaine and Belle

“BELLE! BELLE! BELLE! YOU’re ALIVE!” 

Belle looks in total shock as Gwynplaine dances around her about the deck of the Jolly Roger with utter abandon. He reaches out to grasp her by the arms, but in that moment her face betrays what she sees. “They told you, or, or you would not know me would you. How could you?” He backs away trying to hide his hideous grin from her. 

Belle catches up his hand. “No, wait. You were never ashamed before, why now?” She no longer looks at Gwynplaine but deep into his eyes: “Rumple?”

“No, well, maybe a part of him. Long ago. Do you, do you really remember me?”

“I saw you in his eyes the first time Rumplestiltskin made me laugh, and when he was kind. You were in his voice when he spoke of Bailfire. Of course I remember you.”

“Yes, YES, YES!” Gwynplaine explodes, literally, in a shower of fireworks and flaming confetti from about his head and shoulders. “Oh, excuse me. Mustn’t start a fire.” They laugh together, and his is indeed a very familiar laugh. But soon tears form in his eyes and he puts a forefinger to her lips as if to touch the sound of her laughter, saying only: “It’s been so long.” 

“What’s this?” Asks Hook helping Emma to the deck from the gangplank. 

At the sight of him, Gwynplaine steps back with a look of total, albeit still grinning, terror. “Blind & Toothless!” he screams, falling backward into a coil of rope. 

Scrambling to his feet he scurries around the deck like a mouse about to be pounced upon. “Blind & Toothless! Blind & Toothless! Blind & Toothless!” He lunges toward Emma, “Whoever you are, whatever you are, SAVE ME!” 

“ENOUGH!” Hook firmly lodges his hook in the clown’s collar holding him fast. “A lot of time and tide has come and gone since last we met. You’ll see no vengeance from me.”

“But, but…” Gwynplaine shakes his head in disbelief. 

“Belay that, you’re welcome here.” Hook awkwardly disengages from the clown's frippery, going so far as trying to put it all back in its proper place.

Gwynplaine amazed and relieved, notes the gesture with a tilt of his head and childish giggle.


	4. Finding a Job

“We have to find something for him to do that won’t bring the town down around our ears!” Charming complained. 

“Well, I’ve tried public service.” Regina gestures about her. “He thought my office needed cheering up.” 

“Rainbow kisses and?” Charming observes. 

“Unicorn stickers.” She answers flatly.

Charming winces sympathetically. “Barkeeping isn’t it either. I have a jail full of “Rabbit Hole” patrons that still haven’t sobered up. It’s been two days!”

Sneezy rushes in announcing:  
“There’s been a cave-in! They’re in the hospital!”

“What!” Charming and Regina look at each other and agree at once: “Gwynplaine.”

Sitting in a row against the wall of a hospital corridor are 4 battered looking dwarves so covered in dirt and dust as to be unrecognizable. 

Except for Grumpy that is, who has turned his angriest expression fixedly on the grinning Clown seated in the last chair over next to his. 

Leaning against the wall on the far side, also staring fixedly at Gwynplaine, is a small boy in a hospital gown with a cast on his arm. “Did you get hurt?” He finally asks.

The Clown slowly raises a bandaged finger to show the child. Otherwise he appears totally unscathed. Grateful to be distracted from Grumpy’s glower, the two consider Gwynplaine’s injury together for a moment until the boy finally observes, “You’ll be okay. …What happened to your face?” 

“It’s the way I was made.” 

“Oh… …Can you do tricks?” 

“Yes, I can.” 

“Come with me.” 

Gwynplaine resists but the child insists, pulling him away by the ruffle on his sleeve, “She can’t see you. She won’t be scared.” 

—-

“He isn’t your husband.” Archie advises Belle closing his door behind them, “You don’t have any obligations here.” 

“But”

“I know. I know. But this part of him has lived an entirely other life than what you’ve experienced. You can’t trust he’s what, um, who, you remember…”

At that, Regina and Charming rushes toward them down the sidewalk. Charming answers their questioning looks: “There’s been a cave-in, the dwarves…”

“Gwynplaine!?” Belle asks. 

He nods, “…at the hospital.”

—-

Gwynplaine and the boy linger in a doorway looking in at a small huddled shape in a very large bed. “She’s my sister. We had an accident but they’re going to fix her tomorrow.” 

The youngster jumps up onto the bed, “Hi, Sis!” startling the girl who’s head and eyes are wrapped in bandages. 

“Kenny? Kenny I’m so scared, I don’t know where I am and I’m all alone.” 

“That's silly you’re in the hospital. And how can you be alone if I'm right here? …I brung ya a clown.” 

“Oh where is it?” she cries feeling along the bedding for a new toy. 

The Clown gently touches her hand. “Here I am…” 

Startled again, she retreats back into her pillows. 

“…Come now, you know where you are and you’re not alone.”

“No I don’t. Yes I am. We're not supposed to talk to strangers. I don’t WANT to be in a hospital. I WANT TO GO HOME!”

“Kenny, we haven’t been properly introduced. I am Gwynplaine of the Untold Stories, jester to kings and clown prince to all subjects. At your service, mylady.”

Gwynplaine nods, cocking an eyebrow to Kenny repeatedly in expectation, glancing at the girl.

“OH, ah, this is my sister, Dea.”

“What a beautiful name.”

Dea hasn’t moved, if anything her mood has gotten even worse. “But I can’t see you.”

“Of course ya can. And in your mind’s eye will be a far better likeness I can assure you!” 

Belle and Archie join Regina who is revealed to be listening in at the doorway. Regina observes “I think we’ve finally found a job for our Mr. Gwynplaine.” 

The visit ends too soon for the children as the clown leaves behind him a bed full of magically conjured toys. One in particular, a clown doll, clutched tight in Dea’s arms. 

—-

Gwynplaine and Belle head home to the Jolly Roger where Hook has even given him crew quarters. The townsfolk have obviously gotten a little more used to the sight of him ambling around town, which Regina notes with satisfaction from the steps at Granny’s. Henry approaches looking concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just overheard grandpa tell Big Jim something. I think it was about Gwynplaine.”

“What? No mistaking Jim hates clowns. And your grandfather, he just finds his very existence humiliating.”

“Something about ‘It won’t be long now. He can’t last. A built-in a failsafe just in case?’”

Regina flashes a troubled look at Belle and Gwynplaine as they turn a corner toward the docks.

“Why does he hate you so much?” Belle finally asks the clown. “He created you and, and you were a part of him.” 

“That’s a very personal question. What makes a fool? Someone who loves too much?” The clown pirouettes nearly falling over as Belle, laughing, keeps him upright. “…Or someone who feels too little?”


	5. All That Glitters is Gold

Henry rushes into the library, searching for Belle around the stacks. “Belle? Belle there’s something wrong. I just saw Gwynplaine go into Gold’s shop!”

Henry and Belle slip in the back way and freeze in shock at what they see. Gold stands with his hands gripping one of the glass cases looking downward. Gwynplaine next to him begs: “Take me back. PLease! Please before its too late.” Gwynplaine holds up his hand and watches in horror as fingers start to evaporate into the air. “Please! For everyone’s sake! For Belle’s sake! For the children's sake.”

“Children?” 

“For your own sake then! Take ME BACK!” A sleeve of glitter starts to empty onto the floor. “Listen to me! I know you’re afraid, but to feel is not the same as to fear.” The sleeve hangs limp by the clown’s side and panic sets in. “I. I. I. I’M afraid!” He tries to lift the other arm only to have it too disintegrate before his eyes. “I’m afraid, but it’s YOU that’s the coward, not ME!” Baggy pant legs go limp and empty, and Gwynplaine drops to the floor armless and half a man. “WHAT GOOD IS A HAPPY ENDING YOU CAN’T FEEL?! …Aaaahahhhhhhh!” 

Without even turning, Mr. Gold plunges a hand into Gwynplaine’s chest just as all of the Clown disappears. Only his tattered costume remains hanging limp from Gold’s fist. He edges the empty clothes up onto the counter stiffly pushing it very deliberately away from him across the glass. 

Was Gwynplaine lost? Or did Gold relent and at the last possible instant gather the Clown back into himself?

Belle can’t stand not knowing any longer, she approaches slowly and asks, “What makes a fool?” Reaching the counter she tries to look into his eyes to find some hint of the answer there and continues to ask: “…Someone who loves too much?” 

“Or feels too little.” Gold answers. 

As he turns toward her, she sees the glisten of a tear and growing ever so slightly …a smile.


End file.
